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“My wife and I were on the phone with him around 1 p.m.,” explained the stepfather, Frank DeCillis, 70.

“We were in the car, going to lunch and she called him and the two of us were talking to him,” he told The Post. “[We talked about] family things, what’s going on in his life, how he was doing, stuff like that.”

William Tolley, 42, would wind up dying hours later at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn following a five-story fall from a ladder bucket.

“He was like a son to me,” DeCillis said. “I am closer to him than I am my own sons. We only just found out about 15-20 minutes ago. My wife is devastated. [Tolley’s] wife called and told us.”

FDNY officials said Tolley, a 14-year veteran, had been responding to a routine call of an apartment fire at around 2:30 p.m. Thursday with Ladder 135 when he somehow lost his balance and fell off the ladder bucket.

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Describing what type of person Tolley was, his step-father told The Post he didn’t know a single person who didn’t enjoy his company.

“Oh God, I don’t know anybody who didn’t like him,” DeCillis said. “He was loved by everybody, because he was such a wonderful man. I never saw him get mad, or raise his voice. It was amazing. That was just the type of guy he was. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body.”